I picked this beauty up for $1500, drove it home with expired tags, got pulled over and let off because the cop thought the car was cool, and began attacking it.

I stripped it and sold the hood, seats, some interior pieces, engine and miscellaneous knickknacks for a total of just under $600, so it I really only payed about $1000 to buy and register it.

If you're too lazy to click the thread here are pictures of it when I got it:

Here were the visible rust spots:

Luckily the majority of the rust was on replaceable parts, I'll get to that later.

It has no power anything, and it only has one mirror which I thought was weird. No rear wiper, and it doesn't even have the warning display. Most of the sensors for that system aren't in the car. I'm going to be driving it stripped down, with only the dash and center console and 2 bucket seats in it. Can't wait to weigh it.

So the original lip was beat to all hell so that was the first thing I trashed. Then I began parting it out. traded some stuff and sold some stuff(see above). Then I parked it for about 4 months while I began swapping what I could over, removing what I wasn't going to use, and just cleaning up the car.

I swapped out the rear hatch since water was getting into it and it was rusted, swapped out the driver side fender with a red one, and put a Turbo style hood on. Also got some type 2 MSA sideskirts and put them on.

The biggest project I had to deal with was the suspension. on my 2+2 I had adapted s13 rear suspension using a custom made tophat. I had to get a pair of the same coilover brand for the fronts, (kei office for those who care/know the brand) and chop the front strut tubes off and weld on the sleeves similar to what Mightymaxx did. But I'll have a whole post about the suspension later.

Nothing really got done for a while since I had all the suspension out, got it sandblasted and dropped it off with my friend to disassemble and powdercoat what he could. That process took like 2-3 months since he worked on it on and off, but it only cost me $350 for the powdercoating and putting things together. Not bad.

While that was being taken care off I was gathering parts, I had stripped the engine bay and painted it black, and really just selling a bunch of crap.

Don't have a pic of the bay empty and painted but here is one with the engine and rad in

Here is the engine that went in and pics the night we put it in.

Fuel rail cortesy of cockerstar, I actually ended up using AN fittings since I had to run a new FPR

Here is a pic of when I stripped the sound deadening using my trusty $2 dollar plastic scraper. It ended up breaking from the cold.

Custom SS clutch line like a boss

Figured I might as well since I had SS brake lines.

Got some body parts to put on, yes its a real one, urethane.

And this is it this Monday getting aligned at the closet shop I could find, it really needs a true alignment and corner weighting because of the coilovers.

Putting the HKS Hi power on, from my 2+2, luckily all it needed was to be shortened. The rear half fit perfectly over the subframe. For those who don't know, I bought an s13 hi power that was already chopped off for like $100 and got 2.5in piping with no car on my 2+2. That was adapted to the stock exhaust flange, so I had to chop that off since I got some nice coated headers.

Had it done here, these guys are awesome.

They were working on this on the side. Its an built LSx powered dune buggy, fully custom frame and suspension that cost more than an new car.

Right now as it sits, before heading to a body shop to have the Gnose, and wing put on.

I wish I had a better picture of the underside because it is perfect. The crimp welds aren't effed up and the rails aren't beat like a hooker. I'll get one when it gets up on a rack again.

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Now the suspension, the part I spent the most money on. Here is a quick breakdown of parts and prices for the do-it-yourselfer.

Kei office Coilovers $550

Rear custom top hats that use the stock bolt pattern, $200 for the pair

Techno toy tuning front TC rods $200

TTT bumpsteer spacers $80

New steering rack boots and tie rods $60ish

New steering rack bushings $50 from fleabay

New urethane bushing for the front and rear control arms, $80ish from MSA

s13 solid subframe bushings $70 from fleabay, and $30 to have them turned down to fit ( suggested from Purepontiackid)

New wheel bearing and studs all around $100ish

Sandblasting all the subframe and suspension components $80

Powdercoating was $350

Reassembly and installation of bearing and studs etc was $200

Junkyard 4.11 diff x2 $140

Locking diff center $250

Can't think of anything else so that brings the total to $2440 give or take a few things. Damn that hurts me too.

Here are pics of the coilovers when I was testing the lengths and chopping things off. The middles is the stock tube, the left is fitting on the coilover sleeve, and the right is a tokico shock and spring set up, you can see its much longer ( like a few inches) but I figured when its loaded it should be about the same.

Here is what I chopped off the sleeve

Here is the front control arms, TC rods and the brackets. I actually put zerk grease fittings where all the urethane bushings are at the suggestion of a friend.

Front crossmember

Fronts after welding and powdercoating

Hubs were just painted with a krylon engine enamel silver

putting the coilovers on

One of the rear arms

And here is the rear subframe:

I decided to stick with an R180 since I had actaully found a locking Diff at the machine shop where I get all the work done, unfortunatly I have to wait till JohnC can make another set of halfshafts/stubaxles or whatever before I install it. I got a nice 4.11 diff from a 720 pickup, used that to test fit the diff, then I had to go out and find another 4.11 diff, which it whats in the car now. So I have an open 4.11 in there now, and I have an super LSD 4.11 on the shelf for when I can get those half shafts.

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Final update for a while until I get her painted. I got the Whale tail installed today by Art at sunrise Z. Basically ended up putting a lot of self taping screws into the underside and used silicone around the edges. You can see he just put screws where ever he had access and drilled some new ones for the rear portion and the front corners.

The rear of the car definitely felt more planted at freeway speeds. Hugged the road better. And it didn't rip off so I know its on there good and tight.

A couple other things I did, I replaced the old fuel sending unit so now I know how much fuel I have. Also got it weighed. Came in at 2460 without me in it and on some 15's. The Diamond racing rims add about another 80lbs because they are huge and made of lead.

The only real major things I would like to do mechanically now are a 240sx tranny swap, and install my LSD in my other 4.11 along with some CV's.

Lastly I plan on getting a roll bar welded in, along with some schroth clubman harnesses.

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What size tires, front/rear, are on the Diamond Racing Wheels in the pics of your spoiler? And do you mind me asking how much you paid for the Diamond Racing wheels? Would you change the sizes you chose at all? I'm thinking of going this route... Wanna get it right the first time.

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Fronts are 225/50/16 rears are 265/45/16. I believe I paid $550-600 to have the rims shipped to my door.

If my car was more of a daily, I would go 16x8 all around and only run 225/50/16 tires. Its cheaper and I can rotate tires. I do not regret getting these sizes, but when I get new rear tires I'm going to go with some 245/50/16s tires becasue they are about $70 cheaper.

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I spent an hour pulling off the panels to clean all the contacts to the blower motor, still no go. Then out of nowhere I hit my elbow on the fuse box in the passenger foot rest are and boom it started working. The fuse was lose or corroded or something. I hate when stuff like that happens

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Super duper awesome news. I just got back from my first SCCA autocross event here in FL. IT was a lot of fun and I drove out with turbohls30.

Since it was my first time I ran in the novice class. I got first place for novices, but there wasn't much competition(only 4 other novices, second place was a honda fit).

I had one setback, after the second run with an instructor, one of the cheap heater hose blockoffs popped, the one coming off my thermostat housing. thanks to some awesome racers that had a trailer, I got some hose, a bolt and a few clamps and got it running in a 15 min.

Turbo was supposed to be taking pictures but he couldn't really get near the track. Here are a few pics. No vids sorry, Next time I'll try to have a go pro.

Talked to an instructor, and because of the suspension modifications, if I move up to class racing, I would be competing with S2000 and evo's and STI's. So I'm pretty much doing this for fun.

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Went back and reviewed both your builds, Cool work!! I am liking the new build!! Wish i had the cash flow to get mine up and at em quicker!! Where did you source your fuel rail? and does it come with a different regulator or use the stock one somehow?

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You probably could use the stock one, but might as well go aftermarket. I bought the FPR separately.

I wouldn't have had nearly the amount of money to get it together without selling my 260z. And it's still not painted.

Got the fuel rail from cockerstar, but pallnet also makes them.

Cost of redoing my fuel system:

$150 for rail and rail fittins

$120 for the FPR

$60 in misc AN fittings

$50 for the SS line

$25 for an AN fuel filter

so like $400ish. If you stick with just rubber lines you can save about $100 in fittings and cost of the line.

Very cool! I will check into that stuff, I might also look into building my own. I need to research the pressure the system needs to run right, i have a couple regulators but they are for some of my old v8 carburetor fuel systems. They will work at high pressure, just not sure how well. Might need to do some more research!!

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Got some Swastikas to throw on for around town commuting. Sucks because I'm just trying them out and I need to take them off again on Saturday for the AutoX this weekend

A big con was that when I first put the front on, the tire rubbed on the coilover collars, wtf man. so I had to raid the front by about an inch and a half to make sure they clear. Another con is they look like crap.

A pro is that they are wayyyyy lighter than the DRW so it actually feels quicker. And I get better gas mileage.

I have gold on one side adn black/grey on the other. Total cost of rims with new tires was about $400 so I'm not really complaining.

Might be able to see the horrible gap these rims create

My steamrollers

This is why I needed some stockers, if you look at the inside (right) I have some bad camber wear from it being lowered not even by that much. I've only had these tires on the car for 4000 ish miles. Total miles on these tires is probably under 6000, if not 5000.